Is there a period in your life you yearn to go back to?

[Dappy777]

Do you feel any yearning or nostalgia for the past? Is there a time you long to go back to? Do you ever get drunk and feel tearful because those days are gone forever?

I’ve always wondered how common such nostalgia really is. In particular, do people yearn to go back to their teens? My father was a very sentimental and nostalgic man. He used to go on and on about his teenage years - the fun and the parties and so on. I grew up assuming everybody felt that way except me, and that I was an oddity (I hated my teens and twenties).

I miss the early 90s. The time before Amazon and retail parks. I miss the buzz of the high street- especially in the run up to Christmas with late night shopping under the lights. It was all so exciting through my 8/9/10 year old eyes.
I loved the old stores like BHS and Woolworths and the fact you couldn’t just go into Tesco and literally buy everything from wrapping paper to clothes. I loved getting all the school supplies in WHSmiths.
We literally had to go to town almost every weekend to get the things we needed.
The same high street 30 years on is sad and depressing with empty buildings where Argos and Debenhams once were.

I’d love to rewind.

I have lots of happy memories and some ‘thing X was better then’ but I wouldn’t live through any section of my life again if you paid me.

Except… actually the patch where I had a perimenopausal sex surge and was also single and in emotional shock. I can’t say it was healthy but it was kind of amazing. Like living through a permanent fireworks display. No human was safe.

I was born in 1976 and feel nostalgic for my 20s. I lived abroad in a few countries teaching English, then in London, so independent and adventurous. I had great friends and a varied, interesting life doing what I wanted. However, I was quite aimless and lonely, so it’s not like I was happy all the time. It’s the freedom and confidence - I would just think, I’m going to move to china next, and then I’d make it happen. I’ve now been in the same northern city for over 15 years and no intention of moving, married with 2dc. A very different life. I have friends from then and it’s wonderful to have that connection.

I also get nostalgic for the early days of dating Dh, and of the kids being young, not baby toddler years but primary.

Life is pretty hard right now so I don’t think I’ll look back on it fondly! It’s nice to think of simpler times.

Back to 1978/9 when my first born was an unknown bump, we called the bump Stan.

All the time...it fluctuates between a vague feeling of nostalgia to a full on gut wrenching desire to go back...

When I was watching "Rivals" on Disney+ (a banger if you haven't seen it) I felt a real yearning. They were mooching around smoking and driving cars too fast without seatbelts...it's not that I want to smoke again and drive around too fast without seatbelts now that I am in my 40s and know the dangers and have responsibilities...what I yearn for is that FEELING of no responsibility. Lying on the grass in the sunshine with a Marlborough Light and my only worry was my Dad catching me with said Marlborough Light.

I absolutely love any TV set in the 80s or the 90s. Even our DC late teens often say they wish they were born in those times. Good times.

That said, I'm not sure I'd actually want to be a teenage girl again. Not unless it came with the "I give no fucks" attitude that set in a few decades later. Teenage girls are MEAN. And have very little confidence.

I also would love for DC to be small again - they were so gorgeous and funny. But I also love the grown up humans they've become. I think I will love them every age - I guess that's the point 😁

Age 20-35, I had my lovely flat, i had the 2 most gorgeous Persian cats who I adored! I was the only one out of my friends to have my own flat so we all used to have drinks at mine the out - from Thurs to Sun night was either out drinking or out for tea. I shopped exclusively at M&S for food, had a new outfit every week and I just loved it! After work I’d watch the office and the hills while scrolling looking for the perfect outfit for the coming weekend without a care in the world! Absolutely loved it.

I'd love to go back to when I was at university. Full grant (remember those?), away from home and my bitch of a mother, meeting DH, going out and getting merry, studying a subject I loved. I sometimes dream that I'm back there, but the dream is a sad one - I'm there as an adult, everything is different, and all the people I knew have gone. Hiraeth, see.

I’d like to go back to about age 35-40. Two young children, working very part-time, DH working very locally and self employed so he was in and out all day. Lots of family about, great support network. Good mum friends from the playgroup and nursery school. It was a few years post-cool Britannia so New Labour’s policies were really taking effect. The Millenium Bug hadn’t done us all in. And old age and csncer hadn’t decimated the family yet.

I loved the New Year party on 'Rivals', it was spot on and took me back to 80s parties I'd been at. TV parties always look so staged with everyone posing, the 'Rivals' party looked such fun.
Been watching "Clueless" recently, the teenage party, while exaggerated for effect, brought back a lot of memories.
I miss the late nineties when my children were all at primary school and I miss walking home with them from school across the park on the days I didn't work.

Yes from 17-21. I was with my first boyfriend and those were the happiest times of my life. I also miss when my DDwas aged 3-7, I was young and healthy and my DD was happy and care free and my DM was alive. I still had hope for the future back then.

Yes I get very nostalgic as time goes on

Childhood - happy hazy glow of a loving stable home, lovely holidays, security. My parents were amazing.

17- mid 20s - with my first love, freedom of moving to uni, Nights out, discovery, everything seemed possible. No responsibilities really (though I was quite sensible). Parents were alive and well.

When dcs were babies/ before school. Absolutely loved those years, would go back in a heartbeat.

I still have a good life, and feel lucky, but miss lots of things about those times and find it hard not to be wistful about them. Isn't nostalgia meant to be one of the most difficult emotions?

I would love to go back to my carefree youth with the knowledge I have now to appreciate every minute.

The time where ageing, cancer, dementia and elderly parents were things that didn't affect me.

I'm slowly losing all those from the generation that came before me. The future when I'll be the oldest generation with my wonderful DS & DIL worrying about me in old age is getting closer each day.

When my DH was alive. Ten years this year.

Yes, either when I was 17 or when I met late dp age 44 before he started drinking, if I knew then what I know now I would have got him help much sooner.

I'd go back but only for brief visits. More to see people again who are dearly missed.

A brief visit to my early 20s to visit some dearly missed family members. I wouldn’t stay long as I wouldn’t have my DS. But I’d give anything for one last conversation and cuddle.

And more recently I’d go back to 2020/2021 and relive labour and delivery and the first 6months of DSs life knowing what I know now.

I was petrified of covid and DS being harmed by it. My family wouldn’t come near me for fear of passing anything on him. DH was home for the first 4 weeks then stuck abroad for 3 months as an essential worker due to lockdowns. I’ve never felt more alone in my life and I think it prevented me from soaking up every minute of DS being tiny. I’d love to go back and just really appreciate all those tiny moments of just him and I.

I'd love to have each of my children ages 0-3 again to really soak the preciousness of each of them while they were tiny.

I'd go back about 10 years if I could. My relationship with my late OH was already well established and happy and he hadn't yet got sick.

Late teenager , but only if I knew what I know now ☹️

I love being early 50s and don’t earn going back in time personally. However I do earn for how the world was decades ago, before society became so dependent on tech, family units were still important and biology was clear.

University days for me too, 17 - 20. I was so shy and awkwardly social at the start, and grew so much. I loved what I was studying and where I was, and there was so much time. I remember endless afternoons of sitting with friends, laughing, getting to know boys as friends for the first time (secondary school was a single sex convent school, and my parents were strict), the parties, really figuring out who I was.

And when life ahead was full of possibilities and I’d great dreams of meeting the love of my life, having had lovely times with college boyfriends. (Unfortunately I would very shortly go on to meet the man that would become my abusive (now ex) husband. I wouldn’t be without my 3 DC of course, but I wish I could have met a kind, good man)

Yeah age 17. Living at home, no bills, no responsibilities. Just focusing on getting booze & fag money & a new dress to go out clubbing at the weekend. Trying to figure out which Spice Girl I identified with the most. Kissing lots of boys but not, ahem seeing it through. Carefree days....

I would love to go back to my teens and twenties, simply because I liked those decades - 70s/80s. I would also make different choices job wise, knowing what I do now.

Having said that I'm now retired, which I enjoy very much.

University years and mid 40s till early 50s. Carefree, healthy and fun. Later years romance, adventure and freedom. Need them all back.

This for me. Feel like i started making a series of terrible decisions when i went to uni, i wish i could go back and change it all.